My holidays were complex but good. I saw my father on Christmas Day and he was fine, although I tried to keep my distance while still being friendly. My wife was trapped by him a bit in conversation a few times and I should probably get her a present for that since it seemed pretty annoying. He only told one "back in the day when I was really high" stories, from what she told me, and his wife was lovely as ever. I like her, and am grateful for her presence in his life. She works with developmentally disabled and autistic adults so it seems like a good match.
We are getting close to the end of the third trimester, less than two months, and there are so many things to do. I am not sure how ready anyone is, and I think I have the regular amount of excitement mixed with anxiety. I am trying to choose my intentions carefully and seek out advice from anyone who has ever had a child. We are starting to get stuff from our registry flooding into the apartment and that's a little good/bad because now things are starting to feel a little cluttered. Nowhere really to store it all. I'm starting to really worry about the cats - we won't be able to leave anything lying around because they think everything is a toy and cat hair just goes everywhere. It's difficult to imagine not having them or what we would do if we needed to find another home for them. They are really wonderful and loving creatures. When our kid is born our friends might not miss all of our "crazy cat" stories but aside from the entertainment value they are bright souls.
I am thinking about my identity as a man and a transman and a father a lot as the birth-day looms. About how it seems that thinking about what I'm missing seems to be easier to focus on than what I have, sometimes, and how that seems to be a pattern with transmen I've known. Perhaps it's just the social identity of men is so closely tied to the penis above so many other wonderful and complex traits. I think it may be a combination of that and the trans orientation of being born 'without' - without birth-given form/function, without completion in transition, without a recognizable queer identity, and most often, without a clear career/job path.
I wonder if this doesn't bleed out into the feelings I have toward my father, and maybe he is not as "without" skills or merit or virtue as I often assume. It would be wrong to say he is not deficient in several important father skills, but maybe because he is a convenient container for my other frustrations, everything is amplified. Maybe he is a jerk sometimes, but I could perhaps choose to focus on the good parts and simply acknowledge that he will never satisfy my parent needs. If I can get over the anger and let it go maybe his love that he clearly has for me will just be what it is and I don't need to judge it as much. I will never have the father I needed as a child, that time is over. He can't be the father I need now either, and he won't be the grandfather that makes my kid feel safe and secure. But he does have love, and intends to do a good job. Sometimes I think this "without" perspective that I sometimes put on keeps me from receiving all of the good stuff that might be coming my way.
I think I do a good job at accessing gratitude for what I have, but this might be different. It's part of the same story, but maybe with a richer multi-dimensional before-and-after schema. It's a good instinct, to be cautious after being hurt. Maybe there's a time that defense would serve me better more delicately deployed.
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